Tag: USA

God is a Bullet

  By

★★★★
“God, faith, mayhem and a lot of blood”

To be honest, I never read Boston Teran’s novel. I wasn’t aware of the story until this movie came out here on DVD – but then the book was also never released in my country. I’ve every intention to read it and have already ordered it in English. However, I can’t make any comparisons between the book and the movie adaptation, directed by Nick Cassavetes, son of John Cassavetes.

It seems that when Teran’s novel came out in 1999, it caused quite a stir in Americas crime literature circles. Most agreed about the literary quality of the book: it won several crime novel awards and was nominated for even more. At the same time, its dark outlook on life, as well as the strong violence, were criticized. Teran’s style has been compared to that of Hunter S. Thompson, Jim Thompson and Cormac McCarthy. The author himself, who writes many different sorts of novels, is seen as some kind of mystery: few people seem to know him personally and he doesn’t give many interviews. But maybe he is just not interested in being a public personality (and why should he?), constantly standing in the limelight as some “star authors” do.  The movie rights were quickly bought by Hollywood and Nick Cassavetes planned an adaptation.

It seems to have been a passion project for him. But for whatever reason, it needed a quarter of a century until the movie, filmed in 2021 in Mexico City and New Mexico, would see the light of day. The main character is Bob Hightower (Coster-Waldau, best known as Jamie Lannister in Game of Thrones), a police officer searching for his daughter. She was abducted by a violent sect who also killed his ex-wife and her husband. A former member of the sect, Case Hardin (Monroe) declares herself ready to help him. According to her, he would never have a chance to find the gang by official means, without his daughter getting killed immediately. Bob accepts her assistance, though doesn’t know how trustworthy Case is. Does she really just want to help him rescue his daughter, from the fate that Case herself experienced 12 years ago? Or does she have other motives?

That’s the story in a nutshell. But it’s much more complicated than that, and you also shouldn’t expect this to be a non-stop action movie: it isn’t. I think you could maybe call it a road movie. The search for the young girl, while actually leading there in the end, is more a “McGuffin”, in that it moves the main protagonists forward – but under the surface, a different story is being told. There is an evaluation or discussion about faith, belief, God and values between Bob and Case. He is a believer in God and Christian convictions, while she is essentially atheist. Inevitably, they clash in the beginning until they develop an understanding. They come from two different sides of the spectrum. It’s the cruel descent into a man-made hell, where there is hardly any law except what you make for yourself, like an old-time Western, which makes them partners who rely on and save each other again and again.

It’s the most fulfilling part of the movie. In a way, Case is Bob’s guarding angel; she knows about those people, how they behave, how to deal with them, also the danger that they embody as human life has hardly any value for them. Bob goes “undercover” to find his daughter which also means he has to look and appear like these people, so gets a full-body tattoo by “The Ferryman” (Foxx in a larger supporting role). The aim is to contact the sect, whose cult leader Cyrus (Glusman) is a specific piece of human scum, and deal with him. All of what has happened ties back to Bob’s father in law and his superior at the police office, though he doesn’t know this.

It’s an exciting and I’d even say great piece of film work, though regrettably, will probably never get the attention it deserves. As far as I can see the film never ran in German cinemas, and only I was barely aware of the movie coming out on DVD and Blu-Ray. As the movie wasn’t produced by one of the big studios, the money for marketing might not have been quite there, I assume. The film was criticized for the amount and intensity of violence and so-called misogyny, due to the fact that the movie doesn’t hold back. But bad things happen to everyone in this story, regardless if you are male or female, black or white. In that respect the film is truly democratic, mistreating everyone equally. There are no safe spaces for anyone here.

While I personally have seen worse, a little word of warning. The movie includes rapes, vicious murders, child prostitution, drug addiction, poisonous snakes, slashed throats, head-shots, and people getting killed with flame throwers or suffocated with a plastic bag. You name it, the movie has it. That said, the depiction of all the carnage listed is not gratuitous. I never had the feeling that Cassavetes indulged in violence for violence’s sake. However, if you belong to the more squeamish, this might maybe not be the movie for you.

That said, the movie feels honest in showing a different side of America: the ugly, dark side you usually don’t see in all these feel-good Hollywood movies anymore. You get the sense this is about real people experiencing real pain. Despite the violence, that is stretched over two and a half hours, giving the movie a certain kind of calmness and tranquility. Cassavetes gives his characters time to develop and it pays off handsomely. Scenes can breathe, and unlike a lot of movies today, it’s not all cut-to-the-chase. In the end, Bob and Case are just two lonely people who find each other, during their journey through backwoods towns and the desert, a trip that has something of a cathartic quality.

In the end – and that’s why it’s here – it’s in the main Case’s story. Yes, Bob hopes to find his daughter but he always appears a bit bland compared to her fascinating, broken character. The movie begins and ends with her. There are flashbacks and you start to realize that she is not just lost, she has been robbed of her childhood, that no one really cares for her. She may be on a journey to her own death as Case has no real place that she can call home. The whole depiction reminds me of characters like Revy from Black Lagoon or Lisbeth Salander. Or maybe it’s just my imagination running wild.

In any case, I was highly impressed by Maika Monroe’s performance and the movie as a whole. I personally had no problem with the depicted violence, and think this movie deserves more exposure. All told, if you want to see something different from the typical Hollywood entertainment, this might be of interest.

Dir: Nick Cassavetes
Star: Maika Monroe, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Jamie Foxx, Karl Glusman 

 

Run

  By

★★★½
“Meals on wheels.”

The title here is used ironically, because “run” is the last thing the heroine can do. She is Chloe Sherman (Allen), a teenage girl who has been plagued by medical issues since birth, requiring full-time care from her mother, Diane (Paulson). She’s partially paralyzed, unable to walk, and also suffers from severe asthma. Chloe is, however, awaiting the result of her college application, and is eagerly looking forward to starting a new, independent life, having been home-schooled by Mom, who is the very definition of a helicopter parent. One day, Chloe discovers some of her medication is in her mother’s name, and gradually discovers more evidence that something is very wrong with Diane. If her suspicions are right, the bigger question is, what can Chloe do about it?

This feels like it might have been a COVID-19 project, filmed during the pandemic. There is a limited cast, and the action mostly takes place in the Sherman house. That isn’t actually the case – it was filmed before that, though it’s planned theatrical release was cancelled due to the outbreak, and it ended up becoming a Hulu Original. As such, it plays quite well, with an enjoyably ludicrous approach that, on occasion, makes it resemble a Lifetime TVM. Albeit one that somehow ended up being made by proper film-makers, with a real cast and actual production values. For a smart madwoman, Diane is remarkably stupid. I mean, flat-out Googling “household neurotoxins” – not even bothering with an incognito window – is just silly.

The same goes for Chloe, who swings from whip-smart to panicky and useless, at the drop of some animal medication. I mean, there’s a phone in the house. Dial 911 and be done with it. However, I found it fairly easy to put such logical thoughts to one side, and just enjoy this for its pot-boilery goodness. Paulson is very good at this kind of role. I mean, there’s a reason nobody has appeared in more seasons of American Horror Story than her. Allen is solid too. Interestingly, she does actually use a wheelchair, which gives scenes like her crawling across the roof, to escape after being locked in her room, an additional intensity. She doesn’t seem to have appeared in any films since, which is a shame.

It’s sequences like that which merit its inclusion here, though we have covered similar territory previously with Wait Until Dark. The more hysterical tone in this case, means its closest cousin is probably something like What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, a similar two-hander in which a controlling partner seeks to manipulate a relative. This is more physical than the mental gaslighting in Jane, with Diane realizing that she needs to control Chloe’s body first, in order to control her mind. Conversely, Chloe needs to liberate herself physically first. It’s all rather more nuanced than it initially appears, though works well enough on just a surface level too. It’s certainly a very different take on maternal love.

Dir: Aneesh Chaganty
Star: Kiera Allen, Sarah Paulson

Robotica Destructiva

  By

★★
“Technically marvellous. But only technically.”

To bring out one of my go-to phrases, if I was eleven years old, and hopped up off my face on candy-floss, this would probably be one of my favorite movies. Instead, it’s the kind of film which apparently caused my brain to shut off as some kind of defense mechanism. I’m not kidding. Ten minutes into my first viewing attempt, I suddenly fell asleep. I think my mind may have experienced the cerebral equivalent of a blue screen of death and ran out of memory, forcing a shutdown. For this is just an insane overload of a movie, all the more so considering it was a labour of love, assembled over a period of multiple years.

Gaffin and pals are part of a rock band out of Florida, called The Killer Robots, whose schtick involves dressing in (undeniably impressive) robot costumes, and have also made films like The Killer Robots and the Battle for the Cosmic Potato. Maybe if I’d seen those, this might have made sense, instead of being the incomprehensible gibberish it seemed.  As far as I can determine, the plot is this. The Killer Robots steal the Arculon Destroyer from planet Radia, leaving it defenseless. To retake it, the rulers defrost a trio of android warriors: Mytra (Belko), Azalla (Martin), and Luna (Theron), known as the Destructivas. Mayhem ensues. Which is my way of saying “I’m not sure what happens thereafter.” Oh, except there’s time-travel. Definitely time-travel.

To say this is loosely-plotted, would imply there was any plotting going on at all. There’s no shortage of stuff happening, to be sure. However, very little of it makes coherent sense on more than the shallowest of levels. Characters arrive, do something or more or less relevance, and then vanish without explanation. I was somewhat amused on occasion, such as the way the Destructivas keep getting arrested, convicted and sent to space prison. Or there’s the “peacekeeper” chasing after them whose hand turns into a literal hammer. It’s just that it feels as if Gaffin simply hurled every idea he could think of into a blender, flicked the on-switch and committed the results to high-quality digital video.

Make no mistake, there’s a strong visual aesthetic here, perhaps best described as Tron, remade for fifty bucks after a hit of industrial-strength weed. The poster above is actually a fairly decent representation of the lurid delights in question, and I can’t fault this side of things. However, the lack of characterization, and performances which largely feel like having Chris Farley yelling in your face for a hour, outstay their welcome and become wearing. I would say, it’s the kind of thing which might work better as a music promo. Except, after the credits, that’s exactly what we get: a promo for The Killer Robots. And it’s kinda dull, with the band just wandering round in their admittedly impressive costumes. I still might buy a ticket for a live show. Their movies? Not so much. 

Dir: Sam Gaffin
Star: Amber Belko, Torie Martin, Kristal Theron, Sam Gaffin

Incarcerated

  By

★★½
“Chastely sleazy.”

There’s an interesting idea here, at least. As a young child, Elena (Ayala) has to watch as her mother and brother are killed by crime boss babe Maeve (McComb), after her father (Pardo) made the ill-advised decision to try and steal from her. It’s particularly awkward, since Maeve made him choose which of his two children should live… then killed the one he picked, his son. This Sophie-like choice has, understandably, left the father-daughter relationship somewhat strained, to put it mildly. 15 years later, Elena is a druggie, who robs a liquor store and gets sent to jail as a result. Except, this incarceration is entirely deliberate, because it’s the facility in which Maeve is now serving time, giving Elena her long-awaited chance for revenge.

Naturally, it proves not quite as simple as that, even though within two minutes, her friendly cell-mate, a veteran of the system, is providing a helpful gobbet of exposition about how Maeve has a parole hearing coming up, and has bribed a judge to recommend her release. From here, the inevitable tropes of the women in prison genre kick in, replacing the fairly original overall concept. The enemy quickly made by Elena (or rather, “Sophia,” the name she goes by in jail – perhaps a nod to the whole choice thing mentioned above?) after an incident in the chow hall. The horny guard, Fletcher (Wiles), with an addiction to taking advantage of the inmates. Violence in the showers.

What’s weird, though, is the relatively tame content, considering the situations. For example, on arrival, Elena is given a strip-search by Fletcher, in a rather creepy scene – rendered oddly powerless by the lack of any nudity. The same goes for several scenes shot in the prison showers, in a way which would barely stretch a PG-rating, and feel more in keeping with a TV movie (it’s not: this was made for streaming company Tubi, who have plenty of “mature” content on their service). The only exception is Fletcher getting his comeuppance, which involves a certain body part being sliced off and flushed down the toilet, in fairly graphic fashion. Mind you, Monroe was responsible for the remake of I Spit On Your Grave: it does feel as if he’s more comfortable with violence than sex.

This is all more than a bit implausible, from the way Elena miraculously ends up two cells down from her target, through the way she’s able to keep her identity secret on the inside, to the finale where all pretense at prison security simply evaporates. Can’t help thinking, she could also have just waited until Maeve got out on parole and taken care of her revenge then, considerably more easily. But where’s the fun in that? There are no surprises in the way things unfold, and the almost tasteful amount of restraint here left me suffering from a bit of cognitive dissonance. It feels as if Monroe misunderstood the assignment a bit, resulting in a missed opportunity.

Dir: Steven R. Monroe
Star: Yesenia Ayala, Heather McComb, Jason Wiles, Danny Pardo

Good Ol Girl

  By

★★★
“It’s… complicated.”

This documentary takes a look into the lives of three women in Texas, who are all operating in the male-dominated world of ranching. Some were born into it, while others came to it through choice. In particular, Mandy Dauses falls into the latter category, having left her East-coast home because she felt that Texas represented the best chance to fulfill her ambition of becoming a ranch manager. On the other hand, Sara Lemoine Knox is struggling to balance what she feels is an obligation to carry on in the family business, with her own goal of becoming a lawyer. Meanwhile, Martha Santos is looking to find work in that line, but without her own property, is finding it a challenge.

It’s a way of life which is gradually becoming more endangered for both men and women. For example, Martha’s family used to own land near Laredo, but they sold it to satisfy the ever-increasing appetite for land on which homes and businesses could be built. Similarly, Sara’s heart really isn’t in farming, even though she was given her first property, covering 160 acres, at the age of 12. Even beyond their chosen (or imposed) profession, they have other ambitions. Mandy desperately wants to start a family, but at age 37, time is running out for her. Though during the course of the documentary, she does discover she is pregnant. These are all imperfect lives, and that’s probably the point, offering an non-idealized take that’s radically different from the fictional, romantic version of cowgirls.

Dauses likely represents the most interesting and complex of the characters. On the one hand, she’s clearly a strong, independent woman, who moved half-way across American in pursuit of her dreams. On the other, she still cooks dinner for her long-term boyfriend, John, who expects a meal to be ready on the table when he comes home (regardless of the fact that she has her own job, too). Outside of the story of her pregnancy, however, there is not much sense of development. This is more a snapshot of the three women’s lives at this moment in time, without any narrative. When the end credits roll, nobody is particularly in a different place from there they were at the beginning.

This is not to say there’s any need for forced drama, but there’s not even much sense of time passing. Contrast, say, documentary series Clarkson’s Farm, which had a much more compelling narrative, simply through covering an entire year. Of course, it had the advantage of more time to tell its story, but the dramatic moments here, such as coming across a dead cow in the middle of giving birth, have no particular emotional resonance. Instead, it’s most interesting when you are shown the difficult task the women have to balance the various forces (internal or external) in their lives, looking to achieve harmony. The film probably needed to do a better job of that itself, if it wanted to have a lasting impact.

Dir: Sarah Brennan Kolb
Star: Mandy Dauses, Sara Lemoine Knox, Martha Santos, Joyce Gibson Roach

Taken: The Search for Sophie Parker

  By

★★½
“Taken-ish.”

For a Lifetime Original Movie, this is actually close to the best of its kind I’ve seen., but it is surely docked points for being a thoroughly shameless knock-off of a certain Liam Neeson movie, all the way down to the title. As there, we have an American abroad, searching for a teenage daughter who has been kidnapped by even more foreign sex-traffickers. They will stop at nothing – nothing, I tell ya! – to recover their child, be that personal danger or interference from local corrupt police. The main difference is it’s a heroine, NYPD detective Stevie Parker (Benz), with the location being shifted from Paris to Moscow – though under current circumstances, the location has not aged well.

Certainly, letting your daughter Sophie (Battrick) now go by herself to Russia, even if she is friends with the ambassador’s daughter,  would feel like utterly irresponsible parenting. Even a decade ago when this was made, it seems questionable, and concerns prove justified. Despite the presence of lurking CIA minder Nadia (Bailey), it’s not long before Sophie and her pal have snuck out, gone to a nightclub, been roofied, and are on their way to becoming the playthings for some rich tycoon, courtesy of the Chechen mafia. Mama Parker is not happy. She’s on the first plane to Moscow, where she teams with Nadia and reluctant local cop Mikhail (Byron, who’s English, though his IMDb credits are littered with Eastern Europeans!) to work her way up the chain and rescue the girls.

It’s never less than glaringly obvious, and the first thirty minutes are especially excruciating in this department, not least due to a shoehorned romance for Stevie: it is Lifetime, after all. Once she arrives in Russia – actually, Bulgaria standing in for it – while things don’t get any less predictable, the energy level ramps up several degrees, and this becomes considerably more watchable. Benz has the necessary intensity to be the unstoppable force she needs to be, and pairing her with another woman is an additional wrinkle that works nicely. The action is a bit limited, with the only real sequence of note at the end, when the pair storm the hotel where Sophie is being held before her departure, followed by a chase back to US sovereign territory at the embassy.

There’s no denying a major case of American saviour complex here, with the locals being portrayed as useless or actively evil, and needing the help of the USA in order for any action to be taken. Chris noted the presence of a large Stars and Stripes in the film’s final shot, and it seems entirely deliberate, reminding viewers that they are now back on safe, i.e. American soil. Yet there is surprising darkness, not least in the  uncompromising fate meted out to the corrupt official. After a start where this struggled to hold my attention, by the end I was being just about adequately entertained. Given the source, that’s high praise indeed. 

Dir: Don Michael Paul
Star: Julie Benz, Amy Bailey, Andrew Byron, Naomi Battrick

Scorned

  By

★★★½
“Hell hath no fury, like…”

RIP James Caan. I mention his passing, because by coincidence I watched this the same day, and there are a couple of nods to Misery, one of Caan’s most famous works. There’s a character called Mrs. Wilkes, and we also get an explicitly acknowledged re-enactment of that scene. You know the one. That aside, I’d be hard pushed to call this a good film, yet I can’t deny I largely enjoyed it. It feels like an influence on Knock Knock, and if perhaps not quite coming up to that mark, it’s only marginal below, and I’m still a sucker for a full on, scenery chewing psycho bitch. In Sadie (McCord), we certainly get one.

She and boyfriend Kevin (Zane) are starting a romantic getaway in a remote cabin. Well, that’s his plan. Sadie’s is rather different, having found incriminating text messages on his phone – worse still, to her best friend, Jennifer (Bianca). Not helping matter: Sadie recently discovered she was pregnant, and out of concern for her unborn child, stopped taking her lithium and anti-psychotic meds. Kevin wakes to find himself tied to a chair, with some very awkward explaining to do, and Jennifer is being lured to the cabin with a not-so-genuine text message saying Kevin had split up from Sadie. Adding to the mix, a scary looking convict (Drucker) has just escaped from the prison just down the road, and is headed in their direction.

There’s one scene where I fell… well, I won’t say in love with the movie, but I’d not mind a one-night stand with it. It’s when Sadie has Jennifer and Kevin tied to the bed. She drags a microwave in there too, slaps Sadie’s pet in there and demands Kevin go down on his other woman, “or I will start this microwave, and her little doggie will cook from the inside out.” No, seriously. It’s clear that this film is not to be taken seriously, and the three performances at the core are perfect for that, with Zane and Bianca dead-panning their way through the carnage, playing the straight man and woman to good effect, in contrast to McCord’s over the top, dramatic excesses. For she is going to make Kevin and Jennifer pay for their betrayal. PAY, I tell ya!

Turns out she was brought up in a mental facility and given electroshock therapy, after an incident when she was 12. She is, in essence, the poster child for “Don’t stick your dick in crazy.” Which makes it all more fun to watch her tormenting the errant couple for their sin. It all builds, inevitably, to a climax which is just as gloriously silly. I mean, who keeps a loaded spear-gun on their sideboard? Kevin, meanwhile, is moving with the agility of a gazelle, considering what happened to his ankle previously. All that said, I genuinely didn’t know who would survive at the end. I’ll say it again: I enjoyed this considerably more than I would necessarily recommend it, and the rating above reflects the former.

Dir: Mark Jones
Star: AnnaLynne McCord, Billy Zane, Viva Bianca, Doug Drucker 

Divide & Conquer

  By

★½
“If this is empowerment…”

There are times where I regret my choice of pastime. It means I end up watching things for this site that I would never give the time of day, given the choice. This is one such, having endured the almost physically painful experience which was Hellfire, starring the same three lead actresses, and to which this appears a loose sequel. In this case, Mercedes also took over directorial duties, and… it’s actually somewhat of an improvement. Still not good, by any objective standards, let’s be clear. Yet there’s a punky and unrepentant attitude that clearly doesn’t care what I, or anyone else, thinks. Put it this way, if you want a film which includes close-up shot of the director having a pee, here you go. Offense is its raison d’etre.

The story has (loosely) Greek goddesses Lilith (Divine), Athena (Peach) and Toxie (Mercedes) roaming the blasted hellscape of Tromaville, taking on the evil forces of misogyny and white supremacy, mostly through the superpowers of really bad acting and highly deliberate offense, it would appear. This probably teaches its peak with a recreation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in a strip-club. It feels as if Mercedes simply threw every idea of questionable taste she could come up with into her script, and filmed the result, largely using her pals. If you want a puppet, voiced by Troma movies head honcho Lloyd Kaufman, sitting on the toilet and delivering a lecture on artistic freedom. Again: here you go.

There’s even stuff here I can’t describe, without getting down-ranked by Google for explicit content. Trust me. There is certainly an aesthetic here, and it’s one to which Mercedes is clearly 110% committed, and personally too. [Is it exploitation if you’re doing it yourself?] But it’s not a style which overlaps more than fractionally with my tastes. I’ve been a fan of Troma since back in the days of Toxic Avenger (its star Torgl has a supporting role as creepy motel owner N. Bates). That looks like a Christopher Nolan movie in comparison to Divide & Conquer. Philosophically, I tend to have a different view of empowerment. To me, it doesn’t mean women copying the worst of male behaviour, as seems too often the case here e.g. rape.

There are times when restraint is not necessarily a bad thing. If you drop F-bombs every second word, eventually people are going to tune you out, and this is pretty much the cinematic equivalent. About half way through, as the story meandered its way to, then past, a confrontation with a geriatric Adolf Hitler and his pet werewolf (there’s a phrase I didn’t expect to be writing today!), I simply lost interest. There’s only so much toilet humour, potty-mouthed dialogue and amateur acting I can take in one sitting. This provides an all-you-can-handle buffet of those things, with enough left over to feed your entire family the next day. I prefer something a little less in your face. Quite often here, literally.

Dir: Mercedes
Star: Irie Divine, Knotty Peach, Mercedes, Mark Torgl

Snowbound

  By

★★
“Snow up to much…”

Though not formally listed on the IMDb as a made for television movie, it has all the hallmarks of one, down to what look suspiciously like pauses into which commercial breaks could be inserted. It’s the story of work colleagues, Liz Bartlett (Schnarre) and Barbara Tate (Eleniak). The former is attacked in the company’s parking garage one night, and confesses to her friend that her former husband is stalking her. She fears for her life, having helped put him behind bars. So what is the most sensible thing for the pair to do in these circumstances? If your answer is, “Head off to a remote mountain cabin, in the middle on an impending blizzard”, give yourself two points.

Unsurprisingly, this does not work out well, and you can more or less tell where this is going, from the moment when the cabin’s host says “The owner was very specific about this: do not go into the gun cabinet, it’s in the lease.” Liz and Barbara will be getting a two-star review on their profile, because you should not be in the slightest bit shocked to hear, they do end up going into the gun cabinet. For it’s not long before sketchy characters start harassing Barbara in town, and we also learn that Liz was considerably less than forthcoming with the truth to her supposed BFF. This isn’t a surprise – at least, to the viewer – since we had previously seen her take a case of “camera equipment” on the trip, which we know actually contains a gun and a large amount of cash.

It’s all very much by the numbers, the overall vanilla flavour not helped by two leads who manage to look somewhat pretty, while creating almost nothing approaching memorable characters. Heck, I’d have settled for a depth roughly approximating the alleged snowfall. I say “alleged”, since considering there’s a supposed blizzard in action, sealing them off from the rest of civilization, I’m not sure I actually saw a single flake fall from the sky over the duration of the entire movie. It takes about an hour for Barbara to catch up to what we the audience already knows, and for the ex-husband to appear at the cabin.

Things do get at least somewhat interesting thereafter, with Barbara being forced into steps significantly outside of her comfort zone, in order to stay alive from those in pursuit of her. She’s helped by the fact that the pursuer may not exactly be the sharpest tool in the box, and engages in acts which certainly end up back-firing on them. It’s still all low-impact stuff generally, and not enough to distract you from Eleniak’s resemblance here to a slightly less wholesome version of Meg Ryan. Don’t expect anything along “those” lines either; again, I strongly suspect this was intended for Lifetime, rather than late-night on Cinemax. I’ve already forgotten about it, and feel no great sense of loss thereof.

Dir: Ruben Preuss
Star: Erika Eleniak, Monika Schnarre, Peter Dobson, Bill Mondy

Red Winter

  By

★½
“Snow good at all.”

Carla (Williams) and her boyfriend Daniel (Davis) are all set for a nice weekend in the mountains. Unfortunately, the snowmobile trip runs into difficulty, in particular coming in the shape of a pair of cartel assassins. What, you may ask, are a pair of cartel assassins doing half-way up a snowy mountain in [I’m guessing] the Colorado Rockies? Good question. I’m glad you asked. They are after a robber who made the ill-advised decision to rob a bar which was a front for their organization. He’s now hiding out, half-way up the aforementioned snowy mountain, in the belief he’s safe. Turns out not to be the case.

There’s a prologue which takes us back to when Carla was young, and was out hunting in the woods with her father. They wound a stag, and as they stand and watch it bleed out, we get ominous lines like, “Because when they’re fighting for their lives, sweet pea, they can be dangerous.” Just in case you missed the importance of this, we flash back to this flashback on repeated occasions during the movie. Because, it’s clearly Very Important. Except, it really isn’t. What it does, however, is help to drag things out before we get anything approaching action. It’s mostly people trudging around a mountainous landscape, very slowly, because one of the party has an injured ankle. This occupies much of the first fifty minutes – and we barely reach seventy before the end credits roll.

Carla is, above everything else, a very sensible heroine. She’s quite likeable as such, and comes over as smart, albeit cautious. The problem is, she simply does not get enough to do. These unrealistic expectations were based on a synopsis which reads, “With the killers stalking them through the bitter cold, Carla must use her survival skills taught to her by her father to ensure she’s the predator and not the prey in this bloody fight for survival.” The reality is something far less interesting, in that those skills are largely limited to her binding that ankle mentioned previously. This does not make for thrilling television. [It was made for BET, but feels like it would have been more at home on Hallmark, perhaps titled, The Wrong Mountain]

There’s certainly nothing particularly red about this winter. Except for the heroine, there’s nothing of merit or even, to be honest, real competence here. The script is meandering and unfocused, and most of the supporting characters fail to make an impression. A slight pass goes to Dante (Sanchez), the dominant assassin, who does have some presence. However, Daniel in particular is beyond useless. While this might have been deliberate, in an effort to make Carla look strong, it’s a flawed approach. You create a heroine by having her demonstrate strength, not others showing their weakness. That may seem obvious, but it’s apparently a lesson of which the makers here were unaware. Along with quite a number of others.

Dir: Steven C. Pitts
Star: Ashley A. Williams, Vernon Davis, Brandon Schaffer, Roberto Sanchez